There is
only one thing more scary than the self-righteous.
That is the self-righteous that hold public office.
When the gods were handing out pithy do-gooding,
US politicians picked up a Jimmy Swaggert-sized
portion.

I
still remember vividly
the big bad wolf, Saddam Hussein. We had
to huff and puff and blow his house down
to save the world's oil supply, despite
the fact that a week before his invasion
of Kuwait, the US ambassador to Iraq, on
orders from George Bush and James Baker,
did everything but give Saddam the checkered
flag at the border [see notes below].
Then there was Manuel Noriega, on the CIA
payroll for years, who the US kidnapped at
the cost of many innocent Panamanian lives
and in clear violation of all international
law (so much for those Republican claims
about the 'rule of law').

We
Americans sport a Norman Bates-sized
case of schizophrenia. What do
you say about a nation that considers
itself the last bastion of freedom,
and yet imprisons more people than
any other democracy on the planet?
We are a "family values" country
which holds a Cuban boy against
the will of his own father, and
yet which turns Mexican and Chinese
immigrants away in droves. Our
state pushes its deadly tobacco
on other nations and yet arrests
marijuana smokers in ever-increasing
numbers. We bay and moan about
Chinese spying in the US, and yet
maintain the world's largest
overseas spy network. For Satan's
sake, we are a puritan nation that
considers sex to be dirty and yet
has the highest teenage pregnancy
rate in the industrial world. And
now certain members of our government,
which has set itself up as the
Miss Manners of the world stage,
are telling the diamond community
to keep its elbows off the table.
In this case, the transgression
is dealing in "blood diamonds" ('conflict
diamonds') from African flashpoints.

We Americans sport
a Norman Bates-sized case of schizophrenia. What
do you say about a nation that considers itself
the last bastion of freedom, and yet imprisons
more people than any other democracy on the planet?

Don't
get me wrong. Americans are not the only ones calling
for a boycott, nor is the US government the only
one guilty of shady behavior overseas. But as an
imperialistic Yankee running dog, I presume I have
the right to comment on my government's behavior
(I will leave it to the Brits, French, etc. to
deal with their own dirty laundry).

Trade wars

Before
we Americans participate in such an embargo, there
are a few questions we should be asking. Where
did the rebels get their weapons? As the US is
the world's largest arms dealer, per chance
did they get them from us? Should we be banning
our lead trade along with the carbon crystals?

If
diamonds are so bad, then what about all the
other countries in Africa that have no diamonds,
or any other resources to loot and yet have
atrocious human rights records (Somalia and
Ethiopia, for instance). By Jove, how do they do it?

And
why are such rebels fighting
the government? Are they just
poor sports, the whole bloody
lot of them, or per chance might
they have a valid gripe or three?
Is there a history there, and
if so, what is it?

Original sin

Are we
really so naïve as to believe that because certain
members of the world diamond trade
say they will no longer trade in "blood diamonds," that
miners will stop mining them and traders will stop
trading them? Anyone in the business can tell you
that diamonds are smuggled far more easily than
any other substance. Dogs can't sniff them,
they set off no metal detectors and gemological
labs are virtually helpless to pinpoint origin.
Under current conditions, banning diamonds from
a single source is the equivalent of chasing a
few raindrops out of a hurricane. No matter how
sweet or righteous the thought, enforcement will
be like converting the Pope to Islam. Sorry, ain't
gonna happen.

And now certain members of
the US government, which has set itself up as the
Miss Manners of the world stage, are telling the
diamond community to keep its elbows off the table.

I
hate to break it to y'all, but diamond mining
in totalitarian Africa will continue, embargo or
no embargo. Diamonds will flow out of those countries
like water running downhill, for the simple reason
that there is high demand for diamonds and thus
lots of money to be made. Yes, the US government
can ban blood diamonds, but get ready for those
same diamonds to start popping out of the ground
in Liberia, Russia or some other place. We delude
ourselves if we believe otherwise.

Been there, smoked that

No better example
exists of the folly of such bans than the so-called
US war on drugs, the McCarthyism of our day, a
subject which cannot even be discussed in a rational
manner without someone being labeled the modern-day
equivalent of a commie. In America, a goodly percentage
of the population is convinced that if we can just
grab this drug kingpin, if we can just send a few
more helicopters to that country, we can stop the
drug trade. And yet the trade continues unabated.
Like water running downhill, it finds its own path.

Think
about this. Here we have a country with a president,
Bill Clinton, who has admitted smoking pot
and a vice president, Al Gore who has done
everything but say that he slept with his bong
after he returned from 'Nam. On the opposition
side, the main candidate, George W. Bush, suffers
Reagan-like Alzheimer's attacks each time
he is queried about his past drug use. Yet
the public policies of each of these so-called
leaders is to lock up anybody who so much as
touches an illegal drug. Hello? If I
am the doctor and one of these distinguished
leaders sits down on my couch and starts telling
me he knows what's best for the planet,
I give him a few bursts with a hypocrite gun
and then get busy with a full frontal lobotomy.

Here we have a country with
a president, Bill Clinton, who has admitted smoking
pot and a vice president, Al Gore who has done
everything but say that he slept with his bong
after he returned from 'Nam. On the opposition
side, the main candidate, George W. Bush, suffers
Reagan-like Alzheimer's attacks each time
he is queried about his past drug use. Yet the
public policies of each of these so-called leaders
is to lock up anybody who so much as touches an
illegal drug.

Conspiracy theory

So just what
is this bloody diamond business all about, anyway?
It's amazing the speed with which it has become
an issue. The more cynical among us have suggested
that the whole thing may actually be a De Beers
conspiracy. The great South African giant recently
announced it was abandoning attempts to buy up
the entire world's supply of diamonds. Instead,
it would be concentrating on production from its
own mines and branding of the same. Smart, eh?
By giving up their monopoly, they will now be permitted
to sell directly into the lucrative American market
for the first time in history. But what is pure
genius is that by going public against blood diamonds,
they have simultaneously tainted much of the competition.
What better way to brand your product than to suggest
that everyone else's diamond is covered with
the blood of innocent Africans? How about this
for a new slogan: "De Beers diamonds are a
girl's best friend – the competition
funds baby killers."

What better way to brand your
product than to suggest that everyone else's
diamond is covered with the blood of innocent Africans?
How about this for a new slogan: "De Beers
diamonds are a girl's best friend – the
competition funds baby killers."

Bloodied but not broken

I am not
quite so cynical. But in the case of "blood
diamonds," before we rush willy-nilly down
a slope with more grease than a crooked politician's
palm, we need to think things out. Most of us have
never been to Africa and probably know little of
what is occurring there. But boycotting blood diamonds
strikes me as just a little too simple an answer
to be realistic, a feel-good solution for the naïve
or politically disingenuous. It's time we
remind both the do-gooders and bad guys in our
government about that old adage, you know, the
one that says that you can't get blood from
a stone.

Postscript

In
the words of American singer David Baerwald:

"This… is dedicated to
Dean Acheson, Paul Nitze, John J. McCloy, John
Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, Henry Kissinger, James
Baker III, and George Bush, in the sincere hope
that there is a God and that He is vengeful beyond
all comprehension."

• •

Author's
Afterword

Published in GemKey
Magazine (2000, Vol. 2, No. 6, Sept.–Oct.,
p. 45, 86), this was installment #12 of
my Digital Devil column. Since writing
this in the Summer of 2000, De Beers has
taken great efforts to buy larger shares of diamond
mines in both Canada and Australia. In late July,
2000, journalist Edward Jay Epstein published
a front-page piece in the New York Times suggesting
that De Beers has much to gain from a world
ban on blood diamonds.

Additional Notes

Some
readers are possibly interested in the statement
about the US ambassador to Iraq giving Saddam
Hussein the green light to invade Kuwait, so
I am pleased to reproduce the following transcript
of the meeting between Saddam Hussein and then-US
ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie. It took place
on 25 July, 1990, eight days before Iraq invaded
Kuwait, and was obtained by British journalists:

Glaspie: I
have direct instructions from President Bush to
improve our relations with Iraq. We have considerable
sympathy for your quest for higher oil prices,
the immediate cause of your confrontation with
Kuwait. As you know, I have lived here for years
and admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild
your country. We know you need funds. We understand
that, and our opinion is that you should have the
opportunity to rebuild your country. We can see
that you have deployed massive numbers of troops
in the south. Normally that would be none of our
business, but when this happens in the context
of your other threats against Kuwait, then it would
be reasonable for us to be concerned. For this
reason, I have received an instruction to ask you,
in the spirit of friendship not confrontation regarding
your intentions: Why are your troops massed so
very close to Kuwait's borders?

Hussein: As
you know, for years now I have made every effort
to reach a settlement on our dispute with Kuwait.
There is to be a meeting in two days: I am prepared
to give negotiations only this one more brief chance.
When we [the Iraqis] meet [with the Kuwaitis] and
we see there is hope, then nothing will happen.
But if we are unable to find a solution, then it
will be natural that Iraq will not accept death.

Glaspie: What
solutions would be acceptable?

Hussein: If
we could keep the whole of the Shatt al Arab, our
strategic goal in our war with Iran, we will make
concessions [to the Kuwaitis]. But, if we are forced
to choose between keeping half of the Shatt and
the whole of Iraq [i.e., including Kuwait], then
we will give up all of the Shatt to defend our
claims on Kuwait to keep the whole of Iraq in the
shape we wish it to be. What is the United States' opinion
on this?

Glaspie: (Pause,
then she speaks very carefully) We have no opinion
on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute
with Kuwait. Secretary [of State James] Baker has
directed me to emphasize the instruction, first
given to Iraq in the 1960s, that the Kuwait issue
is not associated with America.

On 29 August,
1990, the Miami Herald reported that the
US State Department had been ordered to give its
files concerning the 25 July, 1990 meeting between
Hussein and Glaspie to a federal judge to decide
whether they must be released.

The
Associated Press reported that the State Department
was fighting a lawsuit filed by Public Citizens,
which contended that the files must be released
under the Freedom of Information Act.

US
District Judge Charles Richey, on
28 August, stated that he needed
to review the documents to determine
whether the State Department properly
withheld them from release. State
contended that the documents were
either "classified in the interest
of national defense or foreign policy,
or reflected the agency's deliberative
process."

Richey
wrote that Glaspie's public
testimony may have "so thoroughly
covered the subjects addressed
in the withheld documents that
the defendant may have waived the
exemption."

The
meeting in Baghdad
between Glaspie
and Hussein has
been a critical
issue in the
debate over whether
the United States
led Hussein to
believe it would
not interfere
if he invaded
Kuwait, which
he did a week
later.

An
Iraqi-released
transcript of
the meeting quoted
Glaspie as saying
that the United
States would
not take sides
in "Arab-Arab" conflicts
such as the border
dispute with
Kuwait.

However,
Glaspie declared
in congressional
testimony that
she also told
Hussein that
the United States
would insist
that any dispute
be settled peacefully.

On
2 September,
1990, one month
after Saddam's
invasion of Kuwait,
British journalists
obtained a tape
and transcript
of the above
Hussein-Glaspie
meeting. Astounded,
they confronted
Ms. Glaspie:

Journalist
2: You knew Saddam was going to invade [Kuwait],
but you didn't warn him not to. You didn't
tell him America would defend Kuwait. You told
him the opposite, that America was not associated
with Kuwait.

Journalist
1: You encouraged this aggression – his
invasion. What were you thinking?

US Ambassador
Glaspie: Obviously, I didn't think,
and nobody else did, that the Iraqis were going
to take all of Kuwait.

Journalist
1: You thought he was just going to take some of
it? But, how could you? Saddam told you that,
if negotiations failed, he would give up his
Iran [Shatt al Arab waterway] goal for the "whole of
Iraq, in the shape we wish it to be." You know that
includes Kuwait, which the Iraqis have always
viewed as an historic part of their country!

(Ambassador
Glaspie said nothing, pushing past the two journalists
to leave)

Journalist
1: America green-lighted the invasion. At
a minimum, you admit signaling Saddam that some
aggression was okay, that the US would not oppose
a grab of the al-Rumeilah oil field, the disputed
border strip and the gulf islands, territories
claimed by Iraq?

(Again, Ambassador
Glaspie said nothing as a limousine door slammed
and the car drove off.)

The
Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global
Drug Trade – by Alfred W. McCoy (1991) – I
read the first edition (1972) of this book
as a teenager shortly after returning from
a round-the-world adventure. It shattered my
last remaining illusions about the US government
and its role in the world. McCoy is today a
respected professor at the University of Wisconsin.

October Surprise anyone?
Why not read about how George Bush, William Casey
and other members of Ronald Reagan's election
staff inexplicably disappeared on the same day
in October, 1980 (hint: they were in Europe, negotiating
with the Iranians to hold the American Embassy
hostages until after the November 1980 election):

An intriguing two-part article
by British journalist, Christopher Hitchins, appeared
in the February and March 2001 issues of Harper's
Magazine. It's title was most provocative:
The Case Against Henry Kissinger (Part I: The making
of a War Criminal; Part II: Crimes Against Humanity).
Among the least of the crimes documented was how
Henry Kissinger secretly passed information to
Richard Nixon's campaign regarding the incumbent
Democratic peace negotiations with North Vietnam.
The Republicans then passed this information along
to the South Vietnamese, who immediately pulled
out of the peace talks. The result? A Republican
victory in the 1968 US presidential elections.
It also meant several years of continued war in
SE Asia, 20,000 additional American deaths, uncounted
Vietnamese deaths, the invasion of Cambodia and
the subsequent rise of the Khmer Rouge (detailed
in William Shawcross's excellent Sideshow:
Nixon, Kissinger and the Destruction of Cambodia ).

As
Hitchins' states: "I can already
hear the guardians of consensus, scraping their
blunted quills to dismiss this as a 'conspiracy
theory.'" Read them and judge for
yourself. Unfortunately, while Hitchins' articles
are not available online, they can be had at
virtually any public library. In addition,
a panel discussion of them featuring Hitchins
is available online at the following link:

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